Gumbo
Pepper led Remy to a chair and pushed him down onto it.
“You stay here. And take the boots off.”
“Yes, madam.”
Remy was kinda stunned. It was long since a woman had taken care of him. It reminded him of Jean-Luc’s mother. The old lady had been fierce. Pepper seemed to be exactly the same. Taking no shit from anyone. He pulled the boots off and looked at his feet. They were pretty much completely healed. It had gone faster than he thought it would. Bruce looked over to him. He understood that Remy was for some reason scared of doctors. Tony and Clint had the same fear. It had taken Bruce long time to convince those two to let him examine them. But he had a feeling that it would be much harder with the cajun. He sighed and went over to where Pepper was readying food to help her. T’Challa, Vision and Fury sat down.
“Remy?”
The cajun looked over to T’Challa. The king continued.
“How did you get into my private rooms to kidnap me? So that I can avoid that in the future.”
Remy smiled.
“Easy. I got past your guards and knocked you out.”
“That’s the thing! It is supposed to be impossible to get past those guards.”
Fury turned to them and Remy answered slowly.
“I think I want that to stay a secret. I can tell you that if anyone else had tried to get into your private rooms they would be caught.”
T’Challa seemed to feel satisfied with that answer and let it go. Meanwhile Fury was still staring at Remy.
“I owe you an apology.”
Remy shook his head.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He stood up and went over to the stove.
“Can Remy help?”
They all noticed how he had slipped into the third person thing again. Pepper looked at him and was ready to tell him to sit down again but, seeing the expression on his face, she agreed.
“Actually it is a good idea. I have no idea what to do.”
Remy thought for a moment.
“Do we have any vegetarians?”
Pepper nodded.
“Wanda and me. But some of the others eat our food sometimes so you have to count everyone as vegetarians.”
Remy nodded and wrecked his brain for some of the recipes Mrs. LeBeau had told him.
“All right. Why don’t you start with the vegetarian dish then madame. You’ll need vegetable oil, flour, onion, green bell pepper, celery, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, parsnip, okra, ground cumin, paprika, dried oregano and cayenne pepper. Remy will tell you what do do while doctor Banner makes the normal version. Doctor Banner will need vegetable oil, andouille, flour, yellow onions, green bell peppers, garlic, chicken broth, okra, salt, cayenne, Original Red Sauce, bay leaves, shrimp, green onions and white rice. Remy will make some Sweet Potato Pie.”
Pepper tilted her head.
“Okay. But what is that supposed to become in the end?”
“Gumbo. Vegetarian. The second one is Shrimp and Sausage.”
They started to work. Remy was giving them instructions while he was readying the pie. Half an hour later the Avengers started to drop in. First were Wanda and Sharon. The agent had borrowed some clothes from Wanda since her own were still in Malibu. Wanda went over to Remy and looked him over the shoulder to which he let her taste some of the ingredients before shooing her away to the table. Next were Sam, Clint and Rhodey. They arrived at almost the same time and all three went over to Remy who rolled his eyes and simply told them to stay away. Logan arrived a few minutes later and sniffed in the air.
“Gumbo?”
Remy smirked and Logan huffed out a breath. He sat down next to Sharon and Remy almost burst out laughing at the way the feral tried to hide the fact that he was drawn to the blonde. Steve and Bucky came in at the same time but the tension between them was almost visible. It could be noticed even more when Bucky went over to sit with Logan and Steve took the seat on the other side of the table. It took another 20 minutes before Tony and Natasha came back. When they stepped in, Logan sniffed in the air again. He smirked.
“Two showers, huh?”
Both Tony and Natasha had totally blank faces. Clint looked from one to the other and then burst out:
“You two…!”
Natasha smiled and took Tony’s hand.
“We two.”
Remy looked at them with something very like jealousy and his shields slipped for a second. He had them up and was back to cooking almost immediately but both Logan and Tony felt it. To the others it was too quick to be noticed. Tony’s eyes widened when he realized why the cajun had those feelings but he didn’t comment on it. There would be time for that later. They all sat down and a few minutes later Remy turned to Tony again. This time his face was emotionless.
“Tony. Could you bring the food over to the table?”
Tony levitated the food there and Remy explained.
“This is Gumbo. This one is vegetarian. The other one is Shrimp and Sausage. We have Sweet Potato Pie for later. Remy hopes you’ll enjoy it.”
He looked around the table and noticed that the others had put themselves so that the only place left was next to Wanda. He sat down there and everyone started to eat. Already after the first bite, almost everyone was telling him how good it tasted. He smiled but didn’t say anything. Tony looked around the table and asked:
“You guys have plans for later today?”
Everyone shook their heads. No one had really thought about anything to do later.
“Well then. How would you like to play something. Like we did before. We already trained today. And I don’t think we have anything else to talk about when it comes to our enemies. So I thought we could play some more.”
Clint nodded his head. Everyone knew that he loved games.
“Never have I ever?”
Some groans were heard around the table but otherwise no one said anything against Clint’s question. They finished eating while some small talk was going on. Later, Wanda helped Tony levitate all the dishes to the sink. They all went to the living room and sat down. Tony and Natasha claimed one loveseat while Wanda dragged Remy onto the other. Vision, T’Challa, Fury and Steve took one of the bigger couches while Bucky, Sam and Clint took the other. Rhodey, Pepper and Bruce took their own armchairs which forced Logan and Sharon to sit on the last loveseat available. Tony levitated glasses to everyone and when they took them he got water to the table. Logan raised his eyebrows so he explained.
“Not everyone can hold their liquor like me or not get drunk at all like you and the super soldiers.”
Logan nodded and they all filled their glasses. Before they could start Natasha quickly added a rule.
“If someone wants to know why or when you did something you have to answer truthfully.”
Slowly they all nodded. Clint started.